KNOWN ISSUE: Maximum queue size is restricted to 65535

Products

• Management Platform (Formerly known as Notification Server)

Issue/Introduction

 

Resolution

Problem

We have a large number of clients being managed on a single Notification Server and have had an extended maintenance window on the server.  To allow clients to post back events without having the Queue Full error we have set the MaxFileQEventCount settings larger > 65,535.

The following behavior is now noted on the Notification Server:

• Queue length is not dropping below 65,535 records.
• High CPU Utilization on the Notification Server.
• Slow processing of in-bound events.
• HTTP 500 and HTTP 503 errors within the IIS event logs.

Example events are:

Priority: 1
Date: 01/01/2000 0:00:00 AM
Tick Count: 156991062
Host Name: SERVER
Process: w3wp.exe (4324)
Thread ID: 9680
Module: AeXNSEventRouter.dll
Source: EventRouter
Description: Err=80070050, Failed to deliver event to file-based queue

Priority: 1
Date: 01/01/2000 0:00:00 AM
Tick Count: 156991062
Host Name: SERVER
Process: w3wp.exe (4324)
Thread ID: 9680
Module: AeXNSEventRouter.dll
Source: EventRouter
Description: DeliverToFile failed. Err=80070050

Priority: 1
Date: 01/01/2000 0:00:00 AM
Tick Count: 156288750
Host Name: SERVER
Process: w3wp.exe (4324)
Thread ID: 10084
Module: AltirisNativeHelper.dll
Source: global.asax
Description: Unhandled exception. Type=System.Web.HttpException Msg=Request timed out.
StackTrace=

Environment
Notification Server 6.0

Cause

This is working as designed.

The Notification Server 6.0 platform uses the Microsoft* .NET Framework 1.1 function call GetTempFileName() to generate files within the Event queue folders (EvtInbox, EvtQFast, EvtQLarge, EvtQSlow, EvtQueue).

This function call has a maximum limit of 65,535 files that it can generate on disk.

For further information on this function please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.path.gettempfilename.aspx

Resolution

The practical maximum Event Queue setting is 65534.

To verify the queue settings:

• Run the Altiris NS Configurator on the Notification Server .  Refer to KB article ID 18712 "Notification Server 6.0 SP3 Reference Guide" (page 143) for installation instructions.
• Browse to Events Settings > Maximum > Maximum Count > MaxFileQEventCount
• Ensure that the Value is less than 65534.  The default value is 20000.